Case Number 05406

THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS

The Charge

Every cop in the state was after her. Everybody else was behind her.

Opening Statement

After getting his feet wet on television shows like Marcus Welby, M.D.
and Rod Serling's Night Gallery, as well as the taut telefilm
Duel, young director Steven Spielberg made his theatrical film debut with
1974's The Sugarland Express. Long overdue on DVD, it's finally arrived
courtesy of Universal.

Facts of the Case

When ex-con/Texas belle Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn, Cactus Flower)
learns her child, Baby Langston, is about to be adopted by the foster family
who's been caring for him, she busts her old man Clovis (William Atherton,
Ghostbusters) out of jail and the two head for Sugarland, where the
foster family lives, to recover their boy. Bumblers, the couple instantly
attracts the attention of the police and, through a bizarre series of events,
ends up with a patrolman (Michael Sacks, The Amityville Horror) as their
hostage. Pursued by Captain Harlin Tanner (Ben Johnson, The Last Picture
Show) and an army of Texas cops, the Poplins and their hostage have a series
of picaresque adventures on their way to Baby Langston and their final
destinies.

The Evidence

Immediately followed by the mega-blockbuster Jaws, The Sugarland
Express comes off at first pass as a low-key and inauspicious debut feature,
and one not particularly Spielbergian. But take a closer look and you'll find
the themes of parental separation and emotionally stunted adulthood so often
revisited during the director's prolific career. It's just that, in this
inaugural theatrical outing, those themes are presented sans the high-octane
action and extra-terrestrials that would come to define Spielberg's career.

In an inversion of the normal Spielberg mode of dealing with the
parent/child relationship, The Sugarland Express puts the parents rather
than the child at the center of the action. At least that's how it appears on
first glance. But for long stretches of the film, Lou Jean and Clovis get caught
up in the giddy exhilaration of their romp across Texas and seemingly forget
about the boon at the end of their quest, Baby Langston. For all intents and
purposes, the Poplins are the story's children, and the cops -- particularly
Captain Tanner -- are the parental figures. The Poplins' abduction of the
patrolman and their headlong flight across the state to claim their toddler is
treated as criminal behavior only in isolated moments of dramatic punctuation.
Mostly, their thwarting of authority is handled comically, the couple framed as
wide-eyed innocents, their demeanor that of small children testing just how much
the rules can be bent before consequences descend. Although Spielberg would
explore the mother-child separation trope once again in 1977's Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, Lou Jean's adventure has less in common with
Jillian Guiler's hunt for her alien-abducted son than it does with Roy Neery's
reckless flight from adulthood and responsibility. Lou Jean is a woman who
responds knee-jerk and willy-nilly to every impulse that flutters across her
heart. There's no sense whatsoever that she's either intellectually or morally
self-aware. She's a child; a child that just happens to look like a young Goldie
Hawn and, so, Clovis -- like Adam handed the apple -- commits himself to the
adventure, whatever hell there may be to pay at the end of the road. Even the
kidnapped patrolman finds Lou Jean's charm irresistible.

The Sugarland Express wades neck deep in every stereotype of
Southerners as blissfully ignorant, gun-toting boobs, but the fine performances
of its actors elevate the script's cookie-cutter characterizations. Hawn's
beauty, uncanny timing, and range as an actress transcend Lou Jean's on-the-page
cartoonishness and evoke genuine sympathy from the audience. She's aided by
character actor William Atherton in a break from the villainous weasel roles
that have since made him a recognizable face. Atherton plays Clovis with
straightforward simplicity that is entirely believable, despite the foolishness
of the character's behavior. And Michael Sacks actually gets to experiment with
a bit of a character arc as Patrolman Slide warms to the Poplins over the course
of the film. Though the characters are fairly one-dimensional on the page, the
film provides them with plenty of quiet moments in which to interact, and
Spielberg wisely gives his actors the space they need to deliver heartfelt,
believable performances.

The film's precise pacing makes it most identifiable as a product of Steven
Spielberg. With prodigious skill, the young director perfectly balances car
chases, action set-pieces, and quiet character moments, while delicately
fostering in his audience competing loyalties to both the Poplins and Captain
Tanner. The film is so effectively propelled by the director's seemingly innate
sense of narrative rhythm, its shortcomings are blurred and one gets caught up
in the kinetic energy of a talented young filmmaker discovering the potential in
himself and his medium. The only blatant misstep is a dour ending that, even
though we see it coming from the film's earliest moments, seems out of step with
the light-hearted tone with which Spielberg mostly handles the subjects of
jailbreaks, kidnapping, and mother-child separation. Hollywood was still under
the influence of Arthur Penn's revolutionary Bonnie and Clyde even as
late as 1974, though, so we should probably cut the young Spielberg some slack
for tacking on what must've seemed an obligatory ending.

In the course of his tight collaborations with cinematographers Allen Daviau
(E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) and Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's
List), Spielberg has come to favor shooting with spherical lenses at a
1.85:1 aspect ratio but, like many of his early films, The Sugarland
Express is presented in the 2.35:1 scope frame. He and cinematographer
Vilmos Zsigmond (The Deer Hunter) utilize the wide canvas with a simple
elegance unusual for such a young director (just check out the subtlety with
which they use rearview mirrors to create natural split-screen effects, for
instance -- it's the type of technical precision that doesn't jump out
ostentatiously at the viewer). This DVD presents their fine work in an
anamorphically-enhanced transfer that falls short of a full-on restoration, but
is still pleasant to look at. While some source dirt and fine wear-and-tear have
carried over into the digital realm, and some shots are marred by too-heavy
grain, colors look appropriate (muted and natural) and the overall image is
smooth and reasonably sharp. The stereo audio is relatively flat, and suffers
from some minor distortion here and there, but it's a decent presentation of the
source.

Unfortunately, the only extra is a trailer.

Closing Statement

Despite the dearth of supplemental material, this DVD offers an entertaining
road movie to anyone looking for a couple hours of escapist fun. The
Sugarland Express is also fascinating as a retrospective glimpse into the
early career of a filmmaker who subsequently changed the medium. Its tight sense
of pacing and mostly deft blend of comedy and drama were a harbinger of things
to come.